It's rare to the point of nearly impossible to find someone who fights in a war to be truly pro-war. So, when the phrase "anti-war" is so easily tossed around in Hollywood circles, it implies a falsehood. That falsehood is that one has to divorce himself from the notion of professional duty to be anti-war.
In the years between the world wars, it was perhaps chic to label war as so utterly evil that the only moral men to engage in warfare are those who's souls are eaten up by it. Witnessing the wholesale slaughter of the World War I battlefields, combined with the horrible events after the war ended, one could understand being jaded.
But, this film takes it to a whole other level. Cynically portraying the star of the film as so totally destroyed psychologically that he committed suicide, and then has his suicide covered up by another member of the squadron who takes him up in a plane while already dead to fake his death by enemy action, might play well to the "war is for losers" crowd, but hardly fit in with the stark truth of why war is sometimes the last resort against evil.
The end credits of the film start with the scene of a plaque inscribed: "Captain J.H. Young, who gallantly gave his life in aerial combat to save the world for democracy."
The obvious message is that fighting to preserve democracy is a cheap act, rendered amoral by the evil of warfare.
Such drivel was driven entirely out of public discourse just a few years later with the rise of the Nazis. The reality that sometimes war can be fought out of simple survival was driven home plainly enough. Moreover, war is sometimes the only way to defeat true evil. And in that effort, those who sacrifice their lives deserve more than to be thought of as psychotic beings.
The reason this film went into obscurity is that this truth became so crystal clear when war in Europe erupted in late 1939. By the time the brutal reality of the Holocaust was fully revealed after 1945, the need of war to vanquish evil was no longer a theory, but a reality soaked with the blood of millions.
There is nuance to the evils of war, as well as to the reality that sometimes war is necessary. This film attempts to strike no such balance. It is a blunt force effort that sets out to show war as entirely evil, an exercise of pure butchery devoid of necessity, and one that in the act must resort to deceit to portray itself in false heroic terms. It renders war as little more than senseless violence, much as a dog getting run over by a truck.
Worse, a film like this one openly projects anyone who seeks to understand these nuances as being perverted. Such paternalistic rubbish might have appealed to an audience chaffed by the experiences of World War I, but not to audiences wizened by the cataclysm of World War II. After that war, no theater would have dared to play it to the public for risk of provoking anger.
Most who have fought in war are affected in many ways, physical and psychological. But, in a more nuanced manner than portrayed in this film, and for the most part not in a manner that renders pointless the reasons for war, especially a war to fight against barbarity that seeks to enslave humanity.
Mankind best lives in a world of peace, but peace is not merely the absence of war, but instead is the presence of human liberty. Consequently, the true lesson of war is that it is evil, but those who fight it can be heroic men of duty, who nonetheless recognize the better nature of true peace.
In the years between the world wars, it was perhaps chic to label war as so utterly evil that the only moral men to engage in warfare are those who's souls are eaten up by it. Witnessing the wholesale slaughter of the World War I battlefields, combined with the horrible events after the war ended, one could understand being jaded.
But, this film takes it to a whole other level. Cynically portraying the star of the film as so totally destroyed psychologically that he committed suicide, and then has his suicide covered up by another member of the squadron who takes him up in a plane while already dead to fake his death by enemy action, might play well to the "war is for losers" crowd, but hardly fit in with the stark truth of why war is sometimes the last resort against evil.
The end credits of the film start with the scene of a plaque inscribed: "Captain J.H. Young, who gallantly gave his life in aerial combat to save the world for democracy."
The obvious message is that fighting to preserve democracy is a cheap act, rendered amoral by the evil of warfare.
Such drivel was driven entirely out of public discourse just a few years later with the rise of the Nazis. The reality that sometimes war can be fought out of simple survival was driven home plainly enough. Moreover, war is sometimes the only way to defeat true evil. And in that effort, those who sacrifice their lives deserve more than to be thought of as psychotic beings.
The reason this film went into obscurity is that this truth became so crystal clear when war in Europe erupted in late 1939. By the time the brutal reality of the Holocaust was fully revealed after 1945, the need of war to vanquish evil was no longer a theory, but a reality soaked with the blood of millions.
There is nuance to the evils of war, as well as to the reality that sometimes war is necessary. This film attempts to strike no such balance. It is a blunt force effort that sets out to show war as entirely evil, an exercise of pure butchery devoid of necessity, and one that in the act must resort to deceit to portray itself in false heroic terms. It renders war as little more than senseless violence, much as a dog getting run over by a truck.
Worse, a film like this one openly projects anyone who seeks to understand these nuances as being perverted. Such paternalistic rubbish might have appealed to an audience chaffed by the experiences of World War I, but not to audiences wizened by the cataclysm of World War II. After that war, no theater would have dared to play it to the public for risk of provoking anger.
Most who have fought in war are affected in many ways, physical and psychological. But, in a more nuanced manner than portrayed in this film, and for the most part not in a manner that renders pointless the reasons for war, especially a war to fight against barbarity that seeks to enslave humanity.
Mankind best lives in a world of peace, but peace is not merely the absence of war, but instead is the presence of human liberty. Consequently, the true lesson of war is that it is evil, but those who fight it can be heroic men of duty, who nonetheless recognize the better nature of true peace.